Indiana, Florida and Alabama carry out 3 executions in the United States on the same day

For the second time this year, three executions by lethal injection took place on the same day, this time in Indiana, Florida and Alabama.

An Indiana man who admitted to killing his girlfriend’s two children was executed early Thursday morning. Jeffrey Weisheit killed the children, ages 8 and 5, by burning down his girlfriend’s Evansville-area home in 2010.

Weisheit died at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. The lethal injection began just after midnight and he was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m. local time, according to Noelle Russell, communications manager for the Indiana Department of Corrections.

She said Weisheit’s last meal was barbecue ribs and he had no last words. Weisheit was Indiana’s first execution of the year.

Early Thursday evening, Florida achieved It is record 19th execution of the year.

Jesse Guardado, 64, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. local time following a three-drug injection at a state prison in Starke.

Guardado had pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing a 75-year-old woman inside her Walton County home in 2004 before stealing her jewelry box, $80 and other valuables to buy drugs. This woman had helped him find a job and housing.

In 2024, a federal appeals court ruled that Guardado, now 64, received a “full and fair” trial during the death penalty phase of his case.

In Alabama, Michael Taylor, 54, received the last lethal injection of the day for his conviction in the killings of an elderly man and woman during a 1991 home invasion.

Taylor was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. local time. The execution began shortly before 6 p.m. when Taylor responded “no, sir” when asked if he had any last words.

He appeared to say “thank you” to his lawyers sitting in the witness room. Taylor’s spiritual advisor approached and prayed with him, and he closed his eyes never to open them again.

It was the second time this year that three people were executed on the same day in the United States. Alabama, Tennessee and Oklahoma carried out executions on August 13.

The death penalty came under scrutiny after the September attacks failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee, although courts rejected efforts to stop further executions because she survived two lethal doses of pentobarbital.

Pike said in a statement dictated to her lawyers and released a month after the botched execution that she had been in pain every moment since waking up confused in the hospital. “I hadn’t considered life beyond that night,” she said.

The lawyers wanted Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Braun to allow Weisheit, 50, to undergo brain scans in an effort to bolster their argument that he had a history of head injuries and mental health problems. Braun refused and also rejected a request to reduce the sentence to life in prison.

Weisheit’s latest objection focused on the state’s planned use of lethal drugs purchased from a pharmacy that is the subject of a disciplinary hearing next week before the Indiana Pharmacy Board. The Indiana Department of Corrections said it was confident “in our ability to humanely carry out” the execution.

After the execution, Braun issued a brief statement saying Weisheit’s case had been reviewed numerous times in state and federal courts.

“These reviews have never resulted in a sentence being overturned,” he said. “Today Weisheit’s sentence was carried out as ordered by the court.”

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said the execution provided “long-awaited justice for Alyssa Lynch and her brother Caleb, two innocent children whose lives were stolen in an act of unspeakable cruelty.”

Florida, meanwhile, has carried out more than half of the 34 executions recorded so far this year in the United States. Outgoing Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made aggressive use of the death penalty like few other governors.

Taylor was executed by Alabama 35 years after fatally beating an elderly couple with a metal bar during a robbery in their Gadsden home. Police stopped Taylor, 19, in the victims’ Cadillac an hour’s drive away in Birmingham. This is the third execution in the state this year.

Opponents of the death penalty had urged Republican Gov. Kay Ivey to reduce Taylor’s sentence to life in prison, pointing to his age and immaturity at the time of the killings.

“If the state kills Michael, it’s not the 19-year-old who made the worst mistake of his life that it’s killing. It’s the mature, respected, God-fearing man sitting in this cell today,” said Esther Brown of the Hope Project to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Ivey, however, refused. She called Taylor’s actions “reprehensible” in a statement following his execution, adding that the couple opened their home to him and that “Mr. Taylor repaid the Moores by beating them to death with a metal bar, all to steal money from them to buy clothes and jewelry.”

She also attacked California Governor Gavin Newsom. to plan a trip all the death sentences there.

“California can let its criminals escape justice, but not Alabama. We enforce the law here and we always will,” Ivey said at the end of the statement.

The state executed Taylor by lethal injection after a a judge declared a nitrogen-based method unconstitutional. His lawyers opposed the last-minute switch to lethal injection since he had chosen nitrogen gas as his method several years ago, but a judge ruled against Taylor.

Defense attorneys said Taylor “knew the depth of the harm he had caused” and “suffered from it for the rest of his life,” adding that he became a changed person in prison and that “Michael’s life was proof that God was not done with any of us.”